A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses #4) by Sarah J. Maas

Feyre went on, “And to hear not just the amount of the bill, but what you spent it on—”

“Oh, so it’s about you saving face—”

“It is about how it reflects upon me, upon Rhys, and upon my court when my damned sister spends our money on wine and gambling and does nothing to contribute to this city! If my sister cannot be controlled, then why should we have the right to rule over anyone else?”

“I am not a thing to be controlled by you,” Nesta said icily. Everything in her life, from the moment she was born, had been controlled by other people. Things happened to her; anytime she tried to exert control, she’d been thwarted at every turn—and she hated that even more than the King of Hybern.

“That’s why you’re going to train at Windhaven. You will learn to control yourself.”

“I won’t go.”

“You’re going, even if you have to be tied up and hauled there. You will follow Cassian’s lessons, and you will do whatever work Clotho requires in the library.” Nesta blocked out the memory—of the dark depths of that library, the ancient monster that had dwelled there. It had saved them from Hybern’s cronies, yes, but … She refused to think of it. “You will respect her, and the other priestesses in the library,” Feyre said, “and you will never give them a moment’s trouble. Any free time is yours to spend as you wish. In the House.”

Hot rage pumped through her, so loud Nesta could barely hear the real fire before which her sister paced. Was glad of the roaring in her head when the sound of wood cracking as it burned was so much like her father’s breaking neck that she couldn’t stand to light a fire in her own home.

“You had no right to close up my apartment, to take my things—”

“What things? A few clothes and some rotten food.” Nesta didn’t have the chance to wonder how Feyre knew that. Not as her sister said, “I’m having that entire building condemned.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“It’s done. Rhys already visited the landlord. It will be torn down and rebuilt as a shelter for families still displaced by the war.”

Nesta tried to master her uneven breathing. One of the few choices she’d made for herself, stripped away. Feyre didn’t seem to care. Feyre had always been her own master. Always got whatever she wished. And now, it seemed, Feyre would be granted this wish, too. Nesta seethed, “I never want to speak to you again.”

“That’s fine. You can talk to Cassian and the priestesses instead.”

There was no insulting her way out of it. “I won’t be your prisoner—”

“No. You can go wherever you wish. As Amren said, you are free to leave the House. If you can manage those ten thousand steps.” Feyre’s eyes blazed. “But I’m done paying for you to destroy yourself.”

Destroy herself. The silence hummed in Nesta’s ears, rippled across her flames, suffocating them, stilling the unbearable wrath. Utter, frozen silence.

She’d learned to live with the silence that had started the moment her father had died, the silence that had begun crushing her when she’d gone to his study at their half-wrecked manor days later and found one of his pathetic little wood carvings. She’d wanted to scream and scream, but there had been so many people around. She’d held herself together until the meeting with all those war heroes had ended. Then she’d let herself fall. Straight into this silent pit.

“The others are waiting,” Feyre said. “Elain should be done by now.”

“I want to talk to her.”

“She’ll come visit when she’s ready.”

Nesta held her sister’s stare.

Feyre’s eyes gleamed. “You think I don’t know why you’ve pushed even Elain away?”

Nesta didn’t want to talk about it. About the fact that it had always been her and Elain. And, somehow, now it had become Feyre and Elain instead. Elain had chosen Feyre and these people, and left her behind. Amren had done the same. She’d made it clear on the barge.

Nesta didn’t care that during the war with Hybern, her own tentative bond had formed with Feyre, forged over common goals: protect Elain, save the human lands. They were excuses, Nesta had realized, to paper over what now boiled and raged in her heart.

Nesta didn’t bother replying, and Feyre didn’t speak again as she departed.

There was nothing to bind them together anymore.





CHAPTER

3

Cassian watched Rhysand carefully stir his tea.

He’d seen Rhys slice up their enemies with the same cold precision that he was now using with that spoon.

They sat in the High Lord’s study, illuminated by the light of green glass lamps and a heavy iron chandelier. The two-level atrium occupied the northern end of the business wing, as Feyre called it.

There was the main floor of the study—bedecked in the hand-knotted blue carpets that Feyre had gone to Cesere to select from its artisans—with its two sitting areas, Rhys’s desk, and twin long tables near the bookshelves. At the far end of the room, a little dais led into a broad raised alcove flanked by more books—and in its center, a massive, working model of their world, the stars and planets around it, and some other fancy things that had been explained to Cassian once before he deemed them boring and proceeded to ignore them completely.